Last week of March

Already the end of March!   This past week, I think we all have enjoyed.

We have been working on multiplication, finishing mbtp, sign of the beaver, I just ordered the movie for our last lesson.  We also had a few extras we did this week as well

Monday we did some schoolwork in the morning that was self led.  Nathan read a bunch of books on genetics, watched a movie on genetics from brain pop as well.   Genevieve was working on her Germaine song, and multiplication.  We then went to rock climbing where both participated as Gigi's tumbling at twisters was later in the day.  I between twisters and rock climbing we went over to Tyler and Cody's house.  

Tuesday was a very exciting day for nathan.  I signed him up for a genomics workshop at ubc.  A fellow homeschooling mom of a gifted child interested in science organized the field trip.  It took a lot of convincing of ubc to let these students come to what they usually only offer to grade 9 students.  I think they were a little blown away with the level of understanding and participation of the kids.  The two instructors were grad students and amazing!   They really answered all of the kids questions and went off with them in their tangents or gently steered them back from quantum physics to genetics.  I stayed for the first two hours with nathan, Genevieve was with me.  I had originally planned on leaving nathan but all the other parents were staying.  I kinda felt horrible leaving nathan when everyone else had a parent there and he's the one with medical concerns!   I had talked to the teacher ahead of time though and given her a card with all of Nathan's info on it, she quickly turned it over and since she's in genetics, I'm sure she recognized eds diagnosis and offered me her number so I would feel more comfortable leaving nathan :).   So what they did, they had about an hour long discussion to start, nathan was thrilled, he has never been in an environment like this before, and he was loving the discussions.  I asked him why he wasn't answering questions as I knew he knew the answers.  He said he was enjoying hearing everyone else's responses, he knows what's in his head, he didn't need to hear it, but other people may answer differently, and spark conversation.  He was soooo into the lecture and discussion.  Next up we all spit in a cup.  We then headed over to the lab.  In the lab we learned what we were doing safety protocol etc.  Genevieve was very intent on the safety protocol, this seemed to be the most interesting to her :).  So with the spit they added SDS (super duper soap) to break down the lipid layer of the cells they collected from swishing saline in their mouths.  Next ethanol was added which made the DNA not happy as the charge was changed, so it formed strings.  We then sucked it up and put it in a vile.  

Gigi is saying can we go!!!!   You promised me something fun like an art gallery!

So Gigi and I left at this point it was break time.  I left nathan and he was totally okay with it!   He said just after I left he got a migraine and almost had to take a Tylenol I left in his backpack, but thankfully it was not severe and short lived.  After the break, they apparently did first year university work of isolating a typical human genome.  They also discussed the ethics of genetics, nathan really enjoyed this part as well.  From what I understand most of the kids thought the ethics were boring, but nathan thought this was one of the most interesting aspects.  They also discussed what it was like being a university student and what it's like at ubc.  Nathan said he would like to always live at ubc and wonders if he could be a student forever. During the lunch break, he went with another couple of families to view some art work.  He told me about it when I picked him up and he said it was okay I went right? And he gave me his reasonings for his decision, and why he thought it was an okay decision.  I love how he is able to make good choices on his own!  He can think for himself!   Apparently one of the boys and him had some great discussions at lunch and have asked for a play date, so they can discuss quantum physics some more.  So nathan survived a 6 1/2 hour day at ubc!!!   Who would have though he could do that a year ago?

Gigi and I took off to Granville island and had some lunch and some shopping, we also toured point grey and all the beautiful waterfront properties.  

We picked up a very excited nathan and decided to hit up the university bookstore, they were a little disappointed (nathan), but I think we missed the books for classes section, maybe he would have liked looking at that?  After our ubc fill for the day we went to the beach. 

We happened to end up at a dog park, yeah since we had ginger with us.  

Wednesday -  we didn't do much it was more of a recovery day from Tuesday for all of us.  

Thursday back to school, more mbtp, but I forget what we did, we went to physio, last appt for 4 weeks.   Poor nathan is not too happy to be missing out in physio, but we will continue to work everyday while at home.  He asked if he could do an extra day with jim, since he isn't doing physio.  I thought I would ask jim, since we had to miss a few days so I don't think we are at our budget yet. And what a difference riding has made for nathan.  

Friday- a few hours of school in the morning.  Nate and Gigi had to write a persuasive argument to Matt to try and convince Matt to either stay at the cabin or go with Attean.  What a difference dragon makes for nathan!   No arguments today about writing, I think he was kind of excited.  I did have to work with nathan to get him to expand on his ideas more, although I thought he had an excellent closing sentence.  Genevieve was finished hers so quick and I think some good writting.  She had some spelling mistakes but hugely improved spelling.   I did not make her correct spelling for this yet because I wanted to focus on content and the great content she presented.  

Saturday - Gigi had a play date with a friend from cheer in Abbotsford, I took them to the wave pool.  

Sunday- 1st interview!

We went to an open audition at a talent agency, it was definitely an interesting experience.  There were lots of people but we definately got their before the crush of people came.  Unfortunately right before they were taken in they decided to speed things up.  They took all the kids in their age group at once.  Once in the room they asked the kids to hold a pen and say "isn't this amazing".  Nathan and Gigi were pretty disappointed, they felt like there was no way they could be judged on such a little statement, they didn't get asked any questions or anything.  They said we waited 2 hours to say wow isn't it amazing :).  They still had fun though, and you can't tell me Genevieve didn't nail the over the top amazement of the pencil :)

After the audition we went to science world and had some fun there, and ended up for dinner at the old spaghetti factory.  

Gigi and I tried for 5 minutes to make these two pieces into a pyramid.  Nathan came over to the table after we had given up, looked at it for 3 seconds put it together, gave a chuckle and said isn't that neat.  

 

I think after seeing nathan do it it still took me a minute to get them together, and I though I was good at visual spatials.  

Genevieve is practicing her very first German song and is very excited about this.  I think we will be hearing this song for the next 3 months or so... I bought the level 3 vocal book from Royal conservatory of music, it has this song, and it comes with an accompany CD, which is wonderful for gigi to practice with.

 

Nathan vs his hip

Well nathan has had his first hip dislocation, he woke up last night in pain but could not call me because the pain was too bad.  He managed to get out if bed this morning and make it to my room.   The poor kid was crying.  He said I can't walk, my hips are so painful.  Between Gigi and I we managed to get him on the bed to try and get him comfortable.  We had tried my usual hip getting back in trick and it didn't work.   So up on the bed he went I got out the volts ten gel, for pain relief and try to get down any inflammation.  It took about 1/2 hour, but I finally got the hip back in with a very big pop.  It still really hurt but he could stand on his leg.   He then tried my trick and managed to get it firmly back in place.   Poor guy asked why it was so hard to talk and why he couldn't talk loud.   It's hard to talk when you are in that much pain.  

I know many would wonder why we didn't go to the ER.  Well I think they would look at me like I'm nuts, and not sure if they could have gotten it back in themselves.   I also could not carry nathan so I would have had to call an ambulance.  I think this way was a lot less traumatic for all of us.  I know I prefer to be at home when I am in pain.  

We got our friends to fill in for our paper route.  And we went to physio.  This helped nathan a lot, and she checked to make sure the hip was firmly back in place.  

Last day of hockey

Nathan slept in again today.  We had a late breakfast and we decided to work on math again today.  It went really well again today.  I decided to draw up some papers nathan can use to write his problems on.  He needs lots of space and he needs lines to separate place values.  I did one sheet for a double digit times a single digit, he can do 4 problems per page

And another sheet for double digit times double digit.   He can only do two problems per page, on this one.  

Nathan needs to have clean clear lines to be able to see.  It helps to have the lines drawn as his writing is so messy it is hard to see what and where he writes it unless he has separate boxes.  

After math we went to hockey.  Kids had a great hockey game.  

Genevieve had cheer next and nathan went to grandma and grandpas and they took him to play street hockey at the local school.  

We came home and nathan wanted to do more math.  I had bought a kumon multiplication book at costco for Gigi and she worked in it for half an hour.  

Forgot to mention, you know the other day when I said his headaches were getting better?  Well he had one that night before bed so he hasn't gone 1 day in the last two weeks without a headache.  Poor guy.  

And nathan went to bed with a dislocated shoulder because we could not get the shoulder to stay in, we kept on putting it in and out it would pop.  He woke up this morning and it was able to stay in.  

Back to reality

Daddy went back to work today, and the music festival is over.  I can breath a sigh of relief, not that you are at work Jeff :), but that we can roll on with our soon to be changing routine.  

While Jeff was home a lot of construction projects happened with nathan and daddy.  They got out the robotics kit nathan got at Christmas and spent hours assembling a car thingy.   Nathan then spent about 1/2 hour to see if he could improve on the initial design of the car.  He tried a few options and decided the original was better.   This was such a cool kit and you can build many different things with all the components.  They only used 2/3 of the motors for this build.  

They worked on a solar power car, but the parts were plastic and you had to pop them out an edsers nightmare.  I started helping nathan and I was about to throw out the thing it was so hard on my hands.  Jeff came to the rescue and nathan and I were relegated to the sorting of parts into bags.  This took forever so we didn't actually build anything else.  

Monday was science club, part two of our forensics day.  A lot of chemistry was covered, including stoichiometry.   All groups managed to solve the mystery to determine Betsy baker was the criminal.  After both nathan and Genevieve played a couple of games of chess.  

Tuesday - nathan and Genevieve participated in Rebecca's DIY class where they made parachutes, wind powered boats.   Nathan worked on a wind turbine and Genevieve worked on a paper mill.  After we went to piano and voice.  Gigi's teacher would like to enter her into a scholarship competition in May.  Genevieve is pretty excited, she is going to sing An die Laute, by Schubert, it is in German and a level 3 song in the royal conservatory of music.  Her teacher is also going to choose a Latin song for her to sing since she is learning Latin.  I think this will be difficult for Genevieve but I think she is up to the challenge.  She was bouncing as she came out to tell me about the German song she is going to sing.  

While Gigi was in piano nathan and I worked on multiplication.  We worked on double digit multiplication and understanding why we do it the way we do it.  If course I first tried the memorizing was add a zero when you multiply in the tens.  We had to break it down so he could understand the why's.   We eventually figured it out.  He did ask to listen to our skip counting cd on the way home (I forgot).  He is realizing how much easier it is for him that he knows how to figure it out, by skip counting.   He almost has the 7's solid, so we just have to work on the 8's and 9's.  So much easier when he is determined.  He learned the 7's in the way to the airport to pick up Jeff last week.  20 minutes and he knew them, and remembered them today.  How we picked the numbers to multiply today is that I had a 7 sided dice and a 36sided dice.  He rolled them to get his numbers.  

Genevieve, it has been bugging me that we have not really worked on multiplication facts yet.  She knows how to multiply but not by memory, like I think she needs.  Well today I gave her two six sided dice, and she solved the multiplication she rolled.  She worked on it for 45 minutes at piano and another 1 1/2 hours at home.  7 pages of neatly written problems, without 1 mistake.  She found the only ones she had to think about were the 7's.  I think I will get her some flash cards to work with next.  And slowly move up the dice.  Glad she liked it and was so determined.  

Oh and to top off our piano, nathan sat on the side of the red chair, well the chair flipped, tossed him to the ground and hit him in the head.  Of course the maintenance person saw nathan sprawled on the floor.  Called for help, they of course are being very careful with him, and worried about him as I am almost laughing out loud saying oh my goodness this is a very minor everyday injury for nathan.  We had to fill out an incident report ha ha.  Don't worry Jeff I was very nice and just went with the flow, even when they were inspecting nathan making sure he wasn't too injured lol

Good things this week, nathan seems back to normal without headaches, he had headaches everyday last week with several medium sized migraines.  The only thing I can think that was different is before the headaches started, he was at my parents and ate gluten for 2 days straight.  Don't worry mom not blaming just making note incase gluten is a trigger.   

Silver and gold, silver and gold...

Well Gigi had two more performances.  

Katy perry fireworks, she recieved a silver, she has struggled with this song and really did not like this song.  Her teacher picked it and well Gigi did not put all her effort into the song.  In the end she performed pretty good, she decided not to use a microphone as she does not like how her voice sounds in it.   We need to get one at home to practice with.  She also does not feel as comport able dining to music from speakers.  She would rather be accompanied by a piano.  But she put in a wonderful effort and I am proud of her putting everything into this song that she could.  The adjudicator did say that he thought when Gigi was as old as katy perry she would be doing exactly what katty perry is :)

She next sang my dog spot this morning, she sang beautifully and achieved a gold again. She was much more comfortable with this song. 

After Gigi's performance we delivered papers and then headed out to stave lake falls power house for a tour.  We spent about 3 hours there.  Lots of near things to do. 

Genevieve wins GOLD

Thursday - homeschooling was definitely a little smoother then Wednesday.  We finished up on Wednesdays lesson.  We then did our Thursday routines of paper route, physio, music therapy, and cheerleading.  Man how does it all fit in one day.  Nathan also had a playdate while Genevieve was at cheer.

Nathans worksheet on values

Genevieves worksheet on values

Genevieve cause and affect

Nathan cause and affect, he drew pictures and had some words, he said the faces showed the emotions, it was pretty good when he explained the pictures to me

Friday - another good day of schoolwork.  And then Nathan had horse riding, where he loped around like crazy, he is really starting to ride well.  Friday evening we took my mom out for dinner.  I think the kids really enjoyed the dinner out with Grandma and Grandpa. 

stereotypes nathan

stereotypes Genevieve

here Genevieve picked a paragraph in the novel, that showed imagery, we discussed what imagery was.  Nathan has one too, I cant find it....

Saturday, cheer in the morning and then for the first time in 6 months no soccer!  I love watching Nathan play soccer, but I am not sad to have a little reprieve of soccer.  We decided to stick around home, I cleaned the garage, the kids had a playdate.  And then we had friends over for dinner and just had a really nice summer day, in winter. 

Sunday - we decided to go up to hope and go for a bike ride to Othello tunnels.  We packed hotdogs and buns and all that to have a weinie roast on the side of the river.  I so loved doing this as a kid, and it was pretty fun to do this with my dad and Nathan and Genevieve, the only thing that would make this better is if jeff was with us.  We ended the day with a birthday dinner for my great aunt Georgette who is 97.  Nathan loves having conversations with her.  Unfortunately there were a lot of people at the dinner so he did not get to talk to her, but they did well.

Nathan enjoying the sun and his rock recliner

Genevieve cooking me a hotdog

Does it get better than this?

Gingy kept up with us running beside our bikes, she was filthy though.  We had to bathe her, two hour bath later and she still has some leaves and sticks stuck in her fluffball.

Monday - No schoolwork accomplished.  Gigi was not feeling well when she woke up, she is achy all over her body, so I let her stay in bed, hoping she would feel better.  Nathan went outside to try and find something to do that was active.  I didn't even her when he came in, but I found him upstairs in his bed reading a book!!!  Nathan previous to taking medication, rarely would read during the day, it was thrilling seeing him reading during the day.  Unfortunately about 1/2 hour later, Nathan was calling me.  I yelled back quite yelling at me and come here if you want to talk to me.  Well poor Nathan replied with a cry, I have a really bad migraine, and I am stuck I can not move.  oh crap, don't I feel like parent of the year.  So I go up and try to assess the situation, its a pretty bad one.  I then go downstairs to get him medication, and see I have received a text.  The teacher wants us there 45 minutes earlier then I had thought.  Oh crap, that means we need to leave in 1/2 and hour, Gigi is not dressed, and Nathan can not move....  Thankfully our housecleaner was there, but she could not stay until we were done, so I called my parents to the rescue again who came and stayed with Nathan.  Of course just when the got there, Nathan was able to be up and about, and feeling better.  He still had a small headache tonight when he went to bed but not like this afternoon.

So gigi's performance was AMAZING!  Wow can that girl sing.  There were 6 girls in her class and she was the only performer who achieved a gold certificate, which means she was above 90%.  She was pretty excited, unfortunately for her at this age level, there is no advancement to the provincial level, or a trophy.  She was pretty excited about her performance though.

Gigi getting prepared

Just before she competed

Genevieve and her teacher marlene

Gold!!!  What an accomplishment

Adjudicators notes

this is Gigis treasure chest, she made it herself out of a cardboard box.  She did most of this herself.

March, first wednesday of the month

Well Well Well, things are starting to settle down around here a little.

Nathan ended up with another flu last week, and missed horse riding on Friday.   We studied some chemistry and both Nathan and Genevieve really liked it.  I was using the first chapter of the elements: ingredients of the universe, it was a free download.  I love this book, and I think I will buy the rest of the book, it is definitely worth it.  Genevieve even liked it related chemistry to baking, something she could understand.  Nathan and I worked a little longer together on this, and I had him balancing simple chemical equations.  But of course he sucks at math right :) 

http://store.ellenjmchenry.com/?product=the-elements-digital-download

 We had a dress rehearsal for the lions club festival of music.  Genevieve performed 2 piano songs and sang 3 songs.  Nathan performed 2 piano songs.  It was great for them to practice these pieces before playing in front of the adjudicator. 

 

 

unfortunately the practice was in a small room and not on a stage, so it was hard for me to take good videos.  But I was able to take some, which I was glad, as I am not allowed to video during the adjudication. 

Saturday we had to wake up early for Genevieves cheer competition in Richmond.  And Nathan had his last soccer game of the season.  My dad came and picked up Nathan to take him to his game.  I am so thankful for my parents and jeffs parents help.

Genevieve had a great time at her cheer competition and she had a little flying at the end of her youth routine, which just before, she got lost and stumbled and landed on the floor, just as the pyramid was closing, I have no idea how she managed to get on top of the pyramid in time for the ending ;)

 

Nathan spent the night at grandma and grandpas after soccer.  Genevieve and I had some girl time together, but after spending all day at cheer I was exhausted, I had thought about getting a hotel, but I think I should have preplanned it because after the comp was done all I wanted to do was go home, not look for a hotel.  So we went out for a nice dinner and came home to watch a movie in bed, we decided on jane austens emma.  I so loved watching this with Gigi.  I love how she can follow it and she seems to enjoy it as much as I do.  Every once in a while I stop the movie and explain what is going on.  The emma production we watched had 6 episodes, and was six hours long, so the next morning we woke up and had some breakfast in bed and cuddled and watched emma until about 12.  All gigi really wanted to do was go to the pool with me.  I even offered to take her shopping, and I would buy, but she really wanted to go to the pool.  So we spent about 4 hours at the pool, and went out for a really nice dinner.

Monday, was Genevieves piano adjudication.  She performed really well, and the adjudicator had great comments for her.  I was also glad Nathan was first so he could see exactly what was expected of him.  Genevieve also baked up a storm today.  I helped her with her first choice which was a pumpkin apple crumble.  Next she made some scones all on her own.  Both were really good, we need to do more baking.

Tuesday - Nathans turn to play his music.  The morning was not going so great, we did our moving beyond the page and Nathan was quite hyper, then we practiced pinao and he crashed, he was tired nad was falling asleep at the piano.  I was a little concerned that piano was not going to go well.  We packed up early and headed to the cultural centre as I was told that there was practice rooms available.  It was such a great idea to do this as Nathan had a surge of adrenalin, and was able to make it through.  He played wonderfully and was very happy with himself.  I don't think I have ever seen him so proud of himself.  He came off saying that is the best I have ever played before.  And a shocking thing happened, the adjudicator was asking questions to the kids, and Nathan answered the questions - 2 of them!!!  I don't think I have ever seen Nathan give an answer voluntarily.  I am telling you this medicine is life changing for him...

Wednesday - you know those days that are so perfect and awesome in homeschooling?  yeah well today was not one of them :)   I started out the day at 8:45 by asking Nathan and genevieve to read chapter 17 in the sign of the beaver, while I make breakfast.  Nathan puts up a big fuss, he does not want to read etc.  1st mistake I made was asking Nathan to do anything before he eats, but I was running late and anxious to get some work accomplished.  So Nathan was sent to his room, for being rude and just disagreeable.  Well this got Nathans blood pressure up and well nose spurting happened.  So he is spewing blood everywhere in his room.  I go in to help him, blood is all over as he barely has time to grab a new Kleenex and the one he has is soaked, and changing Kleenex, causes blood to spurt everywhere, he had gone to the bathroom, as this one was so bad that blood was going down his throat because there was so much even though he was leaning forward.  So now my bathroom is covered in blood.  I take him downstairs to try and sit him and calm him, so his BP will go down and control the bleeding.  Bathroom number 2 is entered, and guess what happens blood everywhere again.  Finally 40 minutes later bleeding is under control.  I now have burnt breakfast and I have 2 bathrooms to clean, and we run out of peroxide as we are cleaning out the blood stains on the carpet.  ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT THIS IS, I get to explain the chemical reaction that the peroxide is having with the blood.  And Nathan likes creating this chemical reaction.  Cleaning takes 20 minutes.  We go downstairs, gigi has made us scrambled eggs, what a darling.  I have a fire alarm going off though as my potatoes, are scorched in the oven, thankfully I had already removed the bacon.  So we ate a few scorched potatoes, bacon and eggs.  Then I send Nathan to finish reading and guess what, he did not do it, I caught him because he was giving me vague answers.  I think he could have fooled his teacher but not his mother, he usually has pretty great discussions about the questions.  Needless to say, I was very upset again.  I sent gigi to her room, so she could work on dreambox, was going to do teaching textbooks, but I could not find the disk.  Nathan and I had a pretty serious talk.  He read the book, and then he started a new math program called redbird Math.

https://giftedandtalented.com/course-detail/-/course/redbird-mathematics-advanced-edition-144

I was a little amazed at how when Nathan does not think he is doing any math he is able to problem solve and do math, but as soon as they put up a regular problem is when he started to have trouble.  I think this program may help him as they first give real world video's on what you would do with the material you are learning.  In this video, he learned about production engineers.  He then had to work as a production engineer, an figure out how to make more pizzas using multiplication.

I am not sure if this math is going to work for Nathan or not, but I though it was worth a shot, and he can use it on his ipad as well, so I think that will help as well, no typing or printing.

After this I was just plain exhausted, but I had to quickly make a lunch and get them out the door to hockey.  After hockey we got a ride to abbotsford so we could pick up my car!  Yeah it is finally ready, no more driving the hip dislocator truck.  Jeffs parents watched the kids as I drove to childrens to go to a connective tissue support group.  And home by 9 pm, whew, anyone tired listening to my day?